The Living Room: Its Many Uses and the Possibilities It Has for Comfort and Beauty

Unquestionably the most important room in the house is the living room, and in a small or medium sized dwelling this room, with the addition of a small hall or vestibule and a well-planned kitchen, is all that is needed on the first floor. A large and simply furnished living room, where the business of home life may be carried on freely and with pleasure, may well occupy all the space that is ordinarily partitioned into small rooms conventionally planned to meet supposed requirements. It is the executive chamber of the household, where the family life centers and from which radiates that indefinable home influence that shapes at last the character of the nation and the age. In the living room of the home. m> ire than in almost any other place, is felt the influence of material things. It is a place where work is to be done and it is also the haven of rest for the worker. It is the place where children grow and thrive and gain their fust impressions of life and of tin-world. It is the place to which a man comes home when his day’s work is done and where he expects to find himself comfortable and at ease in surroundings that are in harmony with his daily life, thought and pursuits.

In creating a home atmosphere, the thing that pays and pays well is honesty. A house should be the outward and visible expression of the life, work and thought of its inmates. In its planning and furnishing, the station in life of its owner should be expressed in a dignified manner, not disguised. If servants cannot be afforded without too heavy a tax upon the family finances, build the house so that it is convenient to get along without them. It is astonishing how easy the care of a house can be made by the simple process of eliminating unnecessary things. The right kind of a home does not drag out all that there is in a man to keep it going, nor is the care of it too heavy a burden upon a woman. It should be so planned that it meets, in the most straightforward manner, the actual requirements of those who live in it, and so furnished that the work of keeping it in order is reduced to a minimum.

It is the first conception of a room that decides whether it is to be a failure or a success as a place to live in, for in this lies the character that is to be uniquely its own. In every house, however, modest, there can be a living room that shows an individuality possessed by no other, an individuality that is actually a part ofthe place, if the room be planned to meet the real needs of those who are to live in it and to turn to the best advantage the conditions surrounding it. These conditions are as many as there are rooms. The situation and surroundings of the plot of ground on which a house is built has much to do with the position of the living room in the plan of that house. As it is the principal room, it should have an exposure which insures plenty of sunlight for the greater part of the day and also the pleasantest outlook possible to the situation. Both of these considerations, as well as the best arrangement of wall spaces, govern the placing of the windows and of outside doors, which may open into the veranda, the sun room, or the garden.

The structural variations of the living room are endless, as they are dominated by the tastes and needs of each separate family. If ROOM the room is to be a permanently satisfying place to live in, nothing short of the exercise of individual thought and care in its arrangement will give the result. Tint one thing must be kept in mind if the room is to be satisfactory as a whole, and that is, to provide a central point of interest around which the entire place is built, decorated and furnished, for it gives the keynote both as to structure and color scheme. It may be a well planned fireplace, either recessed or built in the ordinary manner, with fireside seats, bookcases, cupboards, shelves, or high casement windows so arranged as to be an integral part of the structure. The chimneypiece strikes a rich color-note with its bricks or tiles and glowing copper hood, and the woodwork, wall spaces and decorative scheme are naturally brought into harmony with it. Or perhaps the dominant feature may be the staircase, with its broad landing and well-designed balustrade; or it may be a group of windows so placed that it makes possible just the right arrangement of the wall spaces and commands the best of the view. Or if living room and dining room are practically one, the main point of interest may be a sideboard, either built into a recess or, with its cupboards on either side and a row of casement windows above, occupying the entire end of the room.

Any commanding; feature in the structure of the room itself will naturally take its place as this center of interest; if there are several, the question of relative importance will be easily settled, for there can be only one dominant point in a well planned room. The English thoroughly understand the importance of this and the charm of their houses depends largely upon the skilful arrangement of interesting structural features around one center of attention to which everything else is subordinate. Also the English understand the charm of the recess in a large room. Their feeling regarding it is well expressed by a prominent English architect of the new school who writes: “Many people have a feeling that there is a certain cosiness in a small room entirely unattainable in a large room; this is a mistake altogether; quite the reverse has been my experience, which is. that such a sense of cosiness as can be got in the recesses of a large room can never be attained in a small one. But if your big room is to be comfortable, it must have recesses. There is a great charm in a room broken up in plan, where that slight feeling of mystery is given to it which arises when you cannot see the whole room from any one place in which you are likely to sit; when there is always something around the corner.”

Where it is possible, the structural features that actually exist in the framework should be shown ami made ornamental, for a room that is structurally interesting and in which the woodwork and color scheme are good has a satisfy ins; quality that is not dependent upon pictures or bric-a-brac and needs but little in the way of furnishings.

Only such furniture as is absolutely necessary should be permitted in such a room, and that should be simple in character and made to harmonize with the woodwork in color and finish. From first to last the room should be treated as a whole. Such furniture as is needed for constant Use may be so placed that it leaves plenty of free space in the room and when once placed it should be left alone. Nothing so much disturbs the much desired home atmosphere a to make frequent changes in the disposition of the furniture so that the general aspect of the room i undergoing continual alteration. If the room is right in the first place, it cannot be as satisfactorily arranged in any other way. Everything in it should fall into place as if it had grown there before the room is pronounced complete.